Of Neurons and Receptors
by PinguMew98
Summary: Science sometimes can't explain the seeming unknowable. A short, two-part fic about Cophine and their attempts to add logic and meaning to their relationship. Spoilers for 2x08 and 2x09.


Author's Note: I had a hard time writing these two but I just love their angst, their love, their anger, their mistrust, their storyline. I would love to write a super depressing/angsty story about these two but since the tv show is going, I don't like writing events within canon and then they turn out differently…personal thing. Anyway, I thought these two ficlets. Takes place during 2x08 and pre-2x09.

By the way, I am not an English major, I do not speak French, I do not have a major in biology or neuroscience. I have a rudimentary understanding of English and science and a more discerning understanding of the Japanese language that I have transplanted to the French. I like to read articles about science things and my wife LOVES to inform me of all the neuroscience stuff so, I apologize if I: grossly simplify the basic functioning of neuroscience, butcher the French language, done a disservice to basic English grammar, or have in some other way, destroyed your sense of (insert appropriate subject).

Disclaimer: I don't own any Orphan Black character.

* * *

On the efficacy of words:

"Je t'aime."

There was a weight to those few words. The English language had many benefits but for some reason, the expressions used to convey one of the most profound, immutable feelings-feelings that have the ability to transcend-lacked the weight other languages afforded it. Cosima had once been told by a Japanese friend of hers back in San Francisco, about how they had told their American boyfriend the Japanese phrase for "I love you - Ai shiteru," and how he then used the Japanese phrase instead of the English; and (she had told Cosima) it was too heavy. Cultural differences aside, the phrase implied more than "I love you" could.

Cosima's life wasn't her own, to do as she pleased. Maybe it was the scientist inside of her, but unlike her sisters, who reluctantly protected each other, Cosima felt like she needed to be the bastion of safety. As such, she was not allowed to have problems or issues, or be preoccupied with the idea that she was slowly dying. The last time she was selfish, she had walked the enemy (the beautiful blonde woman she was currently draped across) right into the most sensitive and dangerous part of their intertwined lives. Caught beneath weighty words was not the ideal location for her.

She shifted, slightly uncomfortably under the weight of words before replying. "Is that why you…didn't tell me that they were Kira's stem cells?"

Delphine nodded her head, adding a soft "Yes" in affirmation.

"Is that why, even before I got here you gave Dr. Leekie my blood samples? Even though I told you not to?" Even as she asked the questions she already knew the answers to, Cosima was becoming livid. Her monitor had chosen to help Dyad, the corporation that was actively attempting to maintain a record of them, for their experiment, over her expressed wishes. How did she really know this was "je t'aime" and not…Leekie, or Rachel, or some other unseen mastermind pulling imaginary strings?

But there were those words, weighing Cosima down with all it implied; that Delphine's love meant going against Cosima's wishes, doing whatever it took. That when Delphine said "je t'aime" she meant: 'my love for you is not a cheap or pretty phrase said for effect. This is a mulish emotion I feel from within an enigmatic location. Sure love is a psychological and physiological response, but can never truly express the depths for which I will go for you.' And that was the part of the French woman she loved so very much.

"Cosima…it's your life."

Why couldn't Delphine understand that her (Cosima Niehaus), in and of herself, did not matter? As a Dyad scientist, she (Dr. Delphine Cormier), more than anyone else, should have comprehended the relatively inconsequential nature of her (Cosima Niehaus) existence except in relation to her sisters (Sarah Manning, Allison Hendrix, Elizabeth Childs, _et al._). (Perhaps that was her way of dealing with the inescapable knowledge that she was dying. And that shutting Delphine out sheltered her from having to watch her come apart, figuratively and literally)

"It's not just that. It's all of us. You have to love all of us."

"Then I love all of you."

She desperately wanted to trust Delphine again. She wanted to believe the full implications of her words moments before. But this women, looking down at her with sad, pleading eyes, had been sent to watch her, had been essentially ordered to engage in a sexual relationship to extract information, given the institute she didn't trust her blood against her wishes, then proceeded to treat her with the stem cells of her niece, fully knowing she would have rejected them if she was aware, all the while trying to force others from letting her know the truth.

"Good." She had no other words, at least in the English language, to express all of these feelings. The persistent weight of all the words spoken pressed heavy on Cosima's chest (although that might been the residual effects of the pot…) Could she trust Delphine? Not just "je t'aime" was pressing down, but now "Then I love all of you."

"Because if you betray us again I have enough dirt on you to destroy your career." A threat. Threats have weight in any language. Delphine stared at the dread-ed American, a smile slowly forming, eventually breaking into a laugh. Cosmia hated the weight being placed on her and needed to be un-serious (yey English language and its proclivity towards made-up words). And while there was weight behind her own words, Cosmia wanted these to mean something: "and I love you too."

* * *

On the efficacy of memory:

Memory is a faulty thing. Neurologically, we distort a memory by the very act of recollecting it. Perhaps that is why the brain developed short cuts - ways to circumvent visual memory by way of olfactory, gustatory, and/or auditory stimulus. When Delphine was a younger woman, she loved to try and make use her senses to remember specific events; listening to a particular song, smelling a certain smell, or have something unique to eat, to remember a specific event. Generally though, the connections were made unconsciously. Like how the smell of coffee put her back in the little café outside her university where she would ponder her philosophical paradoxes, or how cigarettes caused her heartbeat to quicken (more than the natural stimulant causes) and places her squarely in the middle University of Minnesota campus.

Although the brain associates the negative as well, even against conscious hope. Every time Cosima hands Delphine a moon pie, she smiles, because seeing Cosima that happy is infectious. But she knows the minute she bites into the chocolaty treat, feelings of foreboding, guilt, and nausea wash over her. With that one bite, she is back in Cosima's apartment; minutes after having sex with a woman for the first time (mind blowing) and knowing she needs to get Cosima out of her apartment so she can violate every sense of privacy and expose it to the Dyad Institute.

So as she sat on the edge of the bed, still in the clothes from the day before, contemplating how badly she walked straight into Rachel's ploy – how she had broken the fragile trust she had gained, not just with Cosima, but, in a way, with Felix and Sarah as well – in the back of her mind she was also wondering, what sense will I associate with this moment? Will a lab no longer be the haven of exploration and freedom, but a prison of mistrust, fear, guilt, lies, and anger?

"What have you done?"


End file.
